Graduates must be ready to work

Our goals can be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no route to success. – Stephen Brennan.

The growing unemployment in the country has, no doubt, influenced the curriculum of education in Nigeria. This has resulted in the review of secondary schools curriculum and inclusion of entrepreneurial skills in the curricula of tertiary institutions. The essence of the curriculum review is to equip the students with entrepreneurial knowledge that will make them self-employed and employers of labour. The review and inclusion seems not to be an ending solution to unemployment crisis in the country.

It is worthy to state that unemployment rate in Nigeria increased to 23.90 percent in 2011 from 21.10 percent in 2010. The average unemployment rate in Nigeria stood at 14.60 percent from 2006 until it reached an all-time high of 23.90 percent in 2011 and a record low of 5.30 percent in 2006.

The attitude of final year students of the University of Ibadan at the career sensitization seminar call for sober reflection as less than three hundred students of the institution participated in the exercise. The programme was organized by the Student Affairs Division of the institution with Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic as the Chairman of Career Board.

Despite massive publicity for the programme which was placed on the University’s website, faculties’ notice boards and other strategic places on campus, students in their lackadaisical attitude still ignored the call to groom them for better opportunities in the labour market.

Securing employment has gone beyond academic excellence. This is because the influx of graduates into the labour market is high compare to job available for the entire sector. It is therefore imperative for graduate to get acquainted with necessary skills expected of him while preparing to take up a job.

It is not an overstatement to state that becoming rich is a matter of mind and decision. As such the lamentation of graduates of higher institution will continue to soar high if the minds of students that are graduating from ivory towers are not refined and nurtured towards taking entrepreneurial skills and know the qualities employers expected them to possess.

Albeit, no pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars or sailed to an uncharted land or opened a new doorway for economic prosperity. It is a matter of fact for students to make themselves available for goals setting and enriching programme.

In the age of industrialization, roads, railways and power were considered as basic infrastructure. In the 21st century, information is the basic infrastructure that must be available to every citizen. The problem with the current generation is the low Information and Communication Technology (ICT) literacy among students and lecturers. It took seven years for internet to receive appreciable acceptance while it took forty six years for electricity and sixty six years for airplane to be accepted globally.

For centuries, universities have been described as a place where higher knowledge and skills have been developed, refined and nurtured. One of the lessons from this career sensitization seminar is that management on their part should mandate the exercise on all final year students of the institution to attend. This will go a long way to arming graduates of the institution with requisite tools for career success. Other tertiary institutions can key into the campaign towards making Nigerian graduates employable, thereby reducing unemployment in the country.

With total number of final year students hovering around two hundred and fifty that attended the programme cut across one hundred and twenty departments, this represents less than 15% of total graduates the university produces annually. This calls for students to be more proactive and ready to utilise every opportunity that comes their way that will assist them to fit into the society.

This is a clarion call on all graduating students to make the best use of opportunity availed them by their institution to harness their entrepreneurial potentials and contribute to societal growth as the world of work is different from world of the classroom.